


Speak to Me Now and the World Will Crumble

by RenBasel



Category: Elder Scrolls, Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: Blood Play, Consensual Kink, D/s, Gender-Ambiguous Listener, Knife Play, Listener is not the Dragonborn, Other, Post Dark Brotherhood Main Quest, Power Exchange, Race-Ambiguous Listener
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-19
Updated: 2018-01-19
Packaged: 2019-03-06 21:20:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,376
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13419882
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RenBasel/pseuds/RenBasel
Summary: Cicero is nothing if not devoted, but he hates his Listener as much as he loves them.Content warnings:Blood, knives, death, PTSD, references to self-harm, consensual kink.





	Speak to Me Now and the World Will Crumble

**Author's Note:**

> For Aiden, who gave me the idea and wouldn't let me get away with not writing it. 
> 
> The title of this one comes from the song "Death Whispered a Lullaby" by Opeth. 
> 
> If you enjoy this fic, please do leave kudos and a comment! Be sure to check out my other Skyrim fics here on AO3, and follow me on Twitter @JennBasel for links to my original content and more.

I was used to waking in the dead of night, surrounded by the silent darkness of my chamber. Sometimes I forgot where I was, until my dreams faded. Nightmares of Falkreath, of searing flame and the screams of my Family, still haunted me, as they haunted us all. It had been nearly a year, and still we were fighting to recover from Astrid’s betrayal.

In some dreams I relived her final moments, as she lay there on the scorched floor, burned flesh weeping even as she did, pleading for me to sacrifice her to our Mother. I still had the blade I killed her with--her own dagger, a symbol of her authority, passed down over years of Brotherhood leadership. It cut through her flesh so easily, spilling the last of her lifeblood as she chanted her final prayer.

So, yes, I was used to waking in the dead of night.

What I was not used to was waking alone.

When the nightmares woke me, it was my custom to roll over and wrap my arms around my lover, secure in the knowledge that he was there for me, ever my beloved even as he was my servant. I would bury my face in his soft red hair, and we would sink into each others’ warmth as I drifted back into my dreams--better, always better, with him as my anchor.

But when I woke this time, he was not there.

He was not away on a contract. He and I left the sanctuary so rarely anymore, and, besides, I would know if a contract had been offered. I would have granted it to him myself, knowing how long it had been since he had the chance to practice his deadly arts. His blade thirsted as much as mine, and I couldn’t leave the sanctuary even for a quick job. Sithis only knew when we would find another Listener if I passed into the Void.

He would not have left just to kill for fun. We had an agreement, not to spill unnecessary blood too close to our sanctuary. We had already drawn too much attention, and the Brotherhood would not--could not--survive another assault. No matter how much he longed to honor the Dread Father with a sacrifice, he knew better than to act on the desire.

I sat up in our bed, clutching the furs around my naked body. It was always so cold in my cavernous chamber, but normally his warmth was there to chase away the chill. I rose, shivering as I shrugged into the robe draped over my desk chair. My lover had embroidered it for me, stitching the sigil of the Black Hand on its breast. A symbol of my authority, he said, and his devotion to reviving the old ways. And to me. 

He could have gotten hungry in the night and gone to find a meal. Gone for a walk, perhaps, or else gone to the privy and not yet made his way back. There needn’t be some nefarious reasoning.

Still, I grabbed Astrid’s dagger--my dagger, now--from where I kept it by the bed, and went to find him. He had been left on his own for too long, and I worried what he might do to himself in lengthy periods of solitude. The ghosts of his past haunted him more than he cared to admit.

The sanctuary’s halls were tomblike in their stillness. Nazir, my Speaker, would be abed, as would our two initiates. Babette was nowhere to be seen. Off hunting, most like. She was such a small thing, and fed frequently. She would be back before the dawn.

My footsteps seemed almost painfully loud in the deathly silence, though I went unshod. The hem of my robe slithered over the stone, and I could feel the shades of long-gone dark siblings watching me from the Void.

We were the last hope of the Brotherhood, my sanctuary and I, and the Void was loath to let us forget. Oft were the times I caught sight of moving shadows, watching as we rebuilt what had almost been destroyed.

I checked the common room first, but I did not find my lover there. The embers in the hearth were long dead, and in the darkness I saw no shadows shaped like my beloved. I made to leave, to see if my lover had returned to bed. But as I did, I heard a soft, indistinct voice. It came, I thought, from upstairs--from the balcony where our Mother dwelt.

Of course. I should have known he would go to Her. It was his place, and it was his burden as much as it was his honor. 

I mounted the old stone staircase that led to the upper level, where Babette kept her garden and Cicero Kept our Mother. Moonlight streamed through the skylight over Babette’s garden, illuminating my lover where he had prostrated himself before our Mother’s coffin.

There were flowers strewn at her feet, but not just any flowers--poisonous blooms from the garden, lovingly tended by the initiates. My lover rested among them, gazing up at the coffin with adoration on his pale face.

“Speak to me, Mother,” he pleaded, as he did more often than I think he wished me to know.

I tucked my dagger into my robe and went to him, though he did not notice me through his rapture. I broke his reverie only by speaking his name.

“Cicero.”

I spoke softly, so as not to startle him, but he jumped anyway, stumbling to his feet and drawing a dagger from his boot. 

I kept still. “It’s me, love. It’s only me.”

His shoulders fell and he tucked the dagger away. “Listener.”

“I woke and you were gone.”

He didn’t meet my gaze. “I am sorry, Listener. Mother needed me. I--”

I cut him off. “She will not speak to you, Cicero.”

He knew this; had always known this. But I saw anger in his eyes as I reminded him of this bitter truth, before he looked away from me. “Yes, Listener.”

We stood there a long moment, Cicero refusing to meet my gaze. In the moonlight I thought I saw color creep into his face. Anger, or shame, or embarrassment, I could not be sure. Some mixture of all three, I suspected.

We were of an age, Cicero and I, but he had come to the Brotherhood years before I. He kept our Mother safe during the war, and he watched the Brotherhood die. It mattered little that he helped it be reborn; he had seen horrors I could only imagine. His pain was his own, and I knew I could never truly understand.

But I could help, in my own small way. I could hurt him more gently; give him the pain he desired, so that he did not hurt himself when I was not there to care for his wounds after.

He still did, at times, because no amount of love or devotion could heal that kind of hurt. But it made it easier for him, to know that he belonged to me.

I approached him and put a hand to his face. Tears glimmered on his cheeks, and I wiped them away. He still did not look at me, nor did not force him. I slid my hand around the back of his neck, up through his hair, gently tugging apart a few tangles. He exhaled sharply, half a gasp and half a sob, and sank into my embrace, burying his face in my shoulder.

I threaded my fingers more securely, balling my fist, pulling harder. His knees went weak, and he tried to sink to the floor. But I held him there by his hair, letting him collapse into me and cry into my shoulder. I pretended not to notice, in some attempt to salvage his pride.

“Cicero lives to serve,” he murmured.

“I know, my love. I know.”

We stood there in front of our Mother’s coffin for a long while, until Cicero had exhausted himself and started to pull away. I let him, watching as he turned to face our Mother.

“I have served Her for so long,” he said. “I have been loyal. I keep Her clean. I have preserved Her. She never should have been removed from Her crypt, but we had no choice.”

He fell to his knees before Her, gazing up at the visage carved upon the coffin. “I am Her most devoted.”

“As you are mine,” I murmured, stepping up behind him and stroking his hair. “She knows you are loyal, Cicero. She loves you. As do I.”

“Then why can She not say it?” He pulled away from me. “You, She picked, when I was there all along. I begged Her to speak! I would give anything to hear Her voice!”

I looked up at the coffin, wondering what Cicero would do should Mother ever speak to him. I didn’t know that it would be good for him. She did not hold conversations with Her Listener. She was not the Listener’s confidante, nor was the listener Hers. She could never give him what he so desired, and what I tried so hard to provide.

For so long She was all he had. I once considered assigning someone else as Her Keeper, and sending him out on contracts, but I never did. He would kill whoever I assigned, and feel nothing. And I would have to exile him for breaking the Tenets, and...truth be told, I did not like to consider what that might do to him.

And, Sithis keep me, I knew it would destroy me, too, to part from him. Much as he vexed me, I loved the fool, and it gave me nightmares to consider what the sanctuary would be like without him. Emptier. Quieter.

Unspeakably lonely.

“What can I do to prove I am worthy?” he asked, not of me but of Her. “Speak to me, Mother, please!”

He lowered his voice, repeating his petition--almost a prayer--under his breath, so quiet I could hardly hear. Over and over he pleaded with Her, tears still streaming down his face. Soon there would come a day I found him dead at Her shrine, having wasted away because he forgot to care for himself out of devotion to Her.

_A word for my ssservant,_ hissed a voice in the back of my mind then. It was Her voice, familiar by then but still startling every time She chose to speak. While I waited for Her to continue, it crossed my mind that, just this once, perhaps Cicero and I should be the ones to carry out the contract. We needed the fresh air, and Cicero...he could use some time away, I thought.

But it was not a contract that She had for me.

_Remind my servant, Listener, that his mother finds him worthy as Keeper. He has served me well._

I hesitated. It was not the first time She had given me words for him. But the last time was different--those words were so that he might know She had chosen me. They were not for Cicero; they were for the Keeper, nothing more.

_Tell him._

“Cicero,” I said. “She has spoken.”

“To you; only to you! Never to anyone but you!”

“She wishes me to tell you that you have served her well.” I chose my next words carefully. “Sithis calls us all to serve the Void in different ways, my love, and a Keeper cannot be a Listener. You have your role to play and I have mine. The Night Mother finds you a worthy Keeper--She would have no one else. Is that not an honor?”

“You don’t understand!” Cicero snapped, nearly wailing. “I was alone with Her for so long, always guessing, never knowing. She speaks to me now, but only through you. Are you lying? Are you playing me for a fool?” He scowled, baring his teeth. “Fool, a fool, a fool. I killed a fool once; a jester.” His voice got so quiet I could hardly hear him. “He laughs at me from the Void. So does She.”

“My love, I…” I trailed off, not knowing what to say. “If you have served Her half so well as you have served me, then you should be proud.” I tried to stroke his hair again--it was soothing, to us both--but he refused me, pulling away and forcing himself to his feet. 

“You mock me.”

“I would never mock you. Please, my love, come back to bed.” I held out my hand. “You are my servant, too; please do this for me. You’re only hurting yourself by lingering here when you should be abed.”

“Fuck you,” he hissed, and I recoiled as if he’d slapped me. It stung, to hear such venom in his voice, and I bit my tongue before I retaliated in kind.

“Cicero,” I said, levying him with a solemn gaze. My next words were an order, and he would never refuse an order. “My servant; my love. Come to bed.”

He stormed off, leaving me alone before the Night Mother. But he was nothing if not devoted, and as I watched him go, I knew I would find him in my chamber, in our bed, waiting for me when I returned.

I lingered at the coffin a moment longer, gazing up at the visage wrought in the old metal. Not for the first time I wondered who the Night Mother had been in life, and who I would be when I passed into the Void. I did my duty. I served my Mother, and the Dread Father in the Void--surely they would reward us, in their own way.

Devotion such as ours deserved rich reward.

As did Cicero.

I left Her then, winding back through the empty halls, still silent as the Void. When I reached my chamber, I found Cicero where I knew I would, sitting on the edge of our bed, face held tight in his hands. He would leave claw marks in his skin if I let him.

I sat beside him, putting a hand on his shoulder. “Do you need me, or do you need rest?”

He shivered at my touch, and his next words were strained. “You, Listener. Always you.” He removed his hands from his face and turned to me, pressing his forehead against mine. “I hate you.”

He did. I knew he did. But he loved me, too; the emotions twisting together into something that created a bond neither of us could ever break. 

I ran my hand through his hair, enjoying the way he shivered, not from the cold, but from my touch. He gave himself to me completely, my Cicero, and I thought he was beautiful in his vulnerability. He had been through so much--by Sithis, he had been through so much--and I wondered if he knew it was an honor to hold that part of him in my heart.

“I love you,” I murmured into his ear, and he melted. I untangled myself from him and stood. “Disrobe for me. And remember, my love, you can stop me. You can always stop me.”

He nodded and did as I asked.

Our lovemaking was never just about sex. It was release, for us both, from the horrors and the nightmares. For Cicero, it was recovery; for me, it was a way to find some control in a life that had given me so little agency. It was a delicate balance, and a commitment to taking care of each other--one we had never expected, but had come to depend on.

I shoved Cicero back onto our bed and drew the blade I’d concealed within my robe. I drew myself up over him, seizing a fistful of his hair and putting the blade--my badge of authority; the representation of everything I was to the Brotherhood, and to him--to his throat.

Carefully--ever so carefully--I pressed it into his flesh, drawing the thinnest line of blood that I could. He let out, not a cry, but a whimper, and screwed his eyes shut. 

“Kill me,” he whispered.

“No.”

“Kill me!”

I tossed the blade to the side, raised my hand, and slapped him hard across the face. “You think you deserve death?” I snarled. “You think you deserve our Dread Father’s embrace? You aren’t finished, Keeper; you have a purpose still.”

I bent and kissed his reddened cheek as more tears began to well in his angry, broken eyes. “You have a purpose,” I repeated, whispering into his ear.

“Yes, Listener,” he said, and I knew he believed it only because it was me who said it. 

He thought he deserved the pain, but he didn’t. I gave it to him anyway, as safely as I possibly could, giving him bruises and welts and cuts that were in my capacity to heal. Old scars criss-crossed his thighs, some from me and others self-inflicted. I placed a gentle kiss on each one before retrieving my blade and making another, laying open his flesh as he bared to me his heart and his soul.

“Is that alright?” I murmured, dabbing at his blood with a clean cloth, watching to make sure it began to clot.

“Yes, Listener.”

I opened a matching cut on the opposite leg, enjoying the way he shuddered and cried out. I tended that one as I had the first, and then I put my blade away. Whether he wanted more, he didn’t always know his own limits, and I was loath to harm him more than he already was. 

“Another,” he demanded.

“No. Not tonight,” I said. “Another day, if you’re good. Now come here.”

I took him into my arms and held him a long while before I did anything else, murmuring soft reminders that he had his place and his purpose, and I loved him for it. He was my servant, and the Night Mother’s servant, and an agent of the Void. He was mine; my most devoted. I loved him.

When I was satisfied he could continue, I pushed myself up and shed my robe, kicking it to the end of the bed. He looked up at me, his eyes still holding an agonizing mix of love and hate and pure awe. I took his hands and placed them against my naked flesh, letting him touch me and know that I was real, and I wanted him. Even when he hated himself, which was so often, I still wanted him.

I took him then, and we both cried out. On a purely physical level, it felt good to join with him; to feel flesh against flesh and experience that pleasure. But on a deeper level, it was soothing, to us both, to know that we had each other.

When he loved me. When he hated me. When we both hated ourselves. Still, through it all, we had each other.

We collapsed into each other’s arms when we finished, sweating despite the cold, curling into each other on top of the furs. I held him, nuzzling into his hair, breathing in the scent of him: sweat, and cum, and blood, and another scent that was uniquely him.

I didn’t linger there long. Though I hated to leave his warmth, it was my task to see to his wounds. I forced myself up to retrieve clean bandages and the pot of salve Babette had made, pretending not to know what it was for, though I was certain everyone in the sanctuary knew by then that not all of Cicero’s bruises were by his own hand.

I tended him gently, knowing he would still be feeling raw, and reminded him over and over that I loved him, and he was worthy, and he had purpose, in my life and in my sanctuary.

When we climbed beneath the furs so that we might both finally find some rest that night, he pulled me tight against him, nuzzled against my neck, and murmured words he so rarely said:

“I love you, Listener.”

I stroked his hair. “I know.”


End file.
